Cultural Clashes And Adaptation

Since the "cultural turn" in translation studies, the influence of cultural elements upon translation has become an important subject in this field. Focus has been given to the way translators render cultural-laden elements in the original texts, especially to the cultural-sensitive words, which determines how successful the cross-cultural intercommunication is.The Bible is the canon of the Hebraic culture, carrying abundant cultural and historical essences. Its translation into Chinese mirrors the process of clashes and fusion of two ancient civilizations—Jews and the Chinese. During this encountering process, many Chinese Bible translations were produced, from the earlier High Wenli, Low Wenli, and Mandarin versions to modern Chinese versions recently contributed by the foreign missionaries and Native Chinese translators. However, none of these versions has greater impact upon the Chinese society than the Chinese Union Version (CUV in abbreviation) has in terms of circulation and popularity, which has largely fallen on its characteristics: faithful to the original Scriptures, accurate, easy to understand. The Anglo-American missionary translators were cautious in rendering the original metaphors, euphemisms and personal pronouns in resource texts, as well as the key theological terms, e.g. the discussion on "Term Question," for these issues were closely related to the adaptation of a divergent culture into China.Though the CUV translators rendered from the resource texts, it was not a completely new rendering. It was a revision from the some previous Chinese versions, mainly the Peking Committee's New Testament in 1865, and Schereschewsky's Old Testament in 1875. Besides, the CUV also referred to Delegates'Version and Griffith John's version for its revision. This paper does research on first-hand documents, materials and biography recorded by the translators of the CUV—C.W.Mateer, C.Goodrich, F,W.Baller, etc, and through adducing examples, it analyses translators'views, textual basis, translating procedure, and characteristics. This paper also analyzes the discrepancies in guiding principles between the CUV and Griffith John'version. More importantly, it takes great pains to study the CUV's revision based on the Peking Version and Schereschewsky's version as well as the phenomena of cultural clashes and adaptation it echoes. Finally, through juxtaposing Confucianism and Christianity, this paper excavates the impact of Chinese traditional culture upon Bible translation.This paper concludes that the Chinese Union Version is a monumental work in Chinese history of translation with great religious, cultural and historic significance. It is the Anglo-American missionary translators who strained to be faithful to the original texts, and in the same time, fully considered the Chinese traditional culture and historical background, that contributes an influential work. They invented Chinese equivalents to some key theological terms, and adopted a literal translation on abstract terms, added marginal notes, and supplied omissions, etc, making their original revision work a creation. The successful translation of the CUV reflects the adaptation of a divergent culture among the Chinese target readers. And in the meanwhile, it provides invaluable experience for Bible translation into Chinese.